wrbeng65UHH Loc: Tennessee

This is not a camera question. I need some advice on exporting photos to Facebook and selected individuals. I have a Nikon Z8 and shoot in RAW. I use Lightroom classic for my editing. When I have an edited photo that I am happy with and wish to share it with a friend or post it on facebook the resolution reduces significantly. The process I follow is to export the photo or a group of photos to a folder on my desktop retaining maximum resolution. Then I select them for posting on Facebook or attach one or more to an email and send. I always make a point to select maximum resolution. The pictures, although clear and properly exposed in Lightroom, are grainy and in poor focus in the Facebook post and when the email is opened. How can I correct this process so clear and properly exposed photos are posted and received by others. Thanks in advance for helpful responses.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The correction action is to create a User Export Preset in LR Classic. You need to properly match your image file resolution to FB's max of 2048-pixels on the long-side of the image. The initial settings for such an Export Preset are shown in a screen capture in this discussion of how and why to use 2048px. Letting FB manipulate your images is just asking for problems.

Recommended resizing parameters for digital images

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

Any magic box that shows media (monitors, celphones, tv, etc), have a set data per inch count. The old monitors are around 72dpi which is would be 24ppi, since every pixel is made out of 3colors, unless each each color dot is used as a pixel itself. Either way a 14" monitor would have around 1000x750 or 760,000 dots/pixels. It wont matter how large your image is, if it is viewed on such monitor, thats all you will see. What would happen is that similar to a jpeg compression of a raw file, algorythms will compress your image so that a bunch of it is thrown out to fit the monitors native size. But a bigger image allows you to zoom. Everytime you press the zoom buttons, you gain back some of the pixels that were not previously shown. That said, if you want to show your image at its optimal then you need to size it within the native size of the monitor you expect it to be shown in in conjuction with the size the website/software that will show it. So basically, find the save size allowed by the site so your image is not resized when shown and project at what device you want it to be shown at its best. Then resize your image within those parameters, save that as a different file so your original is not lost, and upload that.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

For my entertainment, I belong to a couple of Facebook groups. One is a group that edits pictures for people who have no skills in that area. There is always that one or two people who say "Facebook ruins the quality of your picture, so I will send it to you in an email to preserve the quality."

Facebook appears to convert images to jpeg and will reduce the size of a large image to a max 2048 pixels. My guess is that the jpeg compression is probably substantial, but it is jpeg. I don't think that Facebook uses some proprietary compression algorithm that "destroys quality." Most of the people posting to Facebook do so from their phones, they are not professionals, and they have no idea what comprises a "quality" photo in the first place. I have noticed that if you post an image as a comment to a comment, Facebook will often reduce it down to 960 pixels on the long side. Then when magnified for viewing it appears soft and pixelated.

If I have downloaded a file from Facebook to edit and re-post, it will already be 2048 pixels or smaller, so I just make sure that I don't reduce it further and then use 'Quick Export as PNG' in Photoshop to send it to a temp folder, and post it to Facebook from there. If it is my own photo, I first make a copy which I resize to 2048 and then follow the same procedure. That way I am not doubling down on the JPEG compression.

Bubbee Loc: Aventura, Florida

I use links from Dropbox or Google for email. Export from Lightroom (I use PSE) as jpg's to Dropbox or Google. They will retain their size and quality. I prefer links.

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

This is always interesting. I have a way I export pictures for various different uses and then when a question like yours comes along I find out every one has their own and different way. The key is to size them yourself before sending them off. Almost no one ever needs a full size file of your picture. How I do it. Simple. I've made a bunch of presets in Lightroom. I base all my presets on Megapixel size and never bother with the math about how long a size is. My Facebook preset is (1.5 megapixels / Resolution 100 / Quality 100) Thats it. Everything I send to facebook are these settings. I have no idea what length the edges are and I don't care. I highlight a picture, give it this preset and send it to my desktop. Drop in into Facebook then delete it. I never save these little files. I can't see the point. Bottom line: size it for your destination. Don't send bigger files than are needed. Make all decisions yourself. Don't leave it up so someone else.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The UHH link above (Recommended resizing parameters for digital images) included another link in the references to something called the "Always up-to-date guide to social media image sizes".

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-image-sizes-guide/

A casual glance at the content of that site will show all the references are based on the pixel resolution of the image files; there are no references to the file size (bytes) nor the JPEG quality.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

For Facebook sharing, which is all family, I upload reduced files. PSE lets me save from 0 to 12. So for Facebook I use 1, which is close to the lowest quality.
98% view them on their phone and a few on their PC. Fortunately there no pixel peepers and they all look at the content of the image.
If for some reason they want one to print a larger print, I will supply a high resolution copy.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

If you upload images that are larger than 2048 pixels on the long edge to Facebook they get resized by Facebook and can result in (sometimes serious) image degradation. Keep the long edge 2048 pixels or less you won't have a problem.

bwa

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

My suggestion was for him to use your instructions, but to also make sure his FB settings are to keep the resolution of uploads.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

That affects the compression used, not the resolution, and it can really affect quality much more than downsizing to the proper resolution.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Why export as PNG?

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

I just resize my image to 2048 on the long side in photoshop. Save it as a JPG then upload it. just be careful to save the original image at full size....

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

From my experience, there is no way to post to Facebook and retain high resolution. I either use email or Dropbox to send high resolution copies of photos.